First-Week-Post-Midwinter-Break To Do List
A Poem/essay and a video
Read the news. Take a break. Read the news. Take a break. Read the news. Take a break. Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat.
Look for beauty. Find mismatched socks.
Sit next to your daughter while she watches an animated show. She is holding your arm the entire time. Sometimes being a middle aged single mother who is broke is hard, and there are days when you feel like you are constantly having your ass handed to you and then being asked to carry it across the Continental United States, and then there are these moments where you say to yourself, over and over, and believe it with your whole being and body: This is so worth it. This is so worth it.
Make a grocery list. Frozen broccoli. Frozen pizza. Butter. Apples. Bananas. Carrots. Lentils. Potatoes. Milk.
In the tree across the street is an owl the exact color of the tree. Weird. So meta.
The ice on the bay has melted.
Be glad this morning’s snow didn’t stick, because the last thing your nerves and mood can withstand is another afternoon devoted to digging a pathway from the backdoor to the car; clearing the snow off your car; shoveling the driveway; and then digging another path from the driveway to the front door.
Bribe your daughter with more television to get her to clean up the mess that she made yesterday.
Accept the bribe was not that successful, and try to let go of your irritation.
Forgive yourself for leaving the lid of a plastic container on an extinguished but still hot burner and getting melted plastic all over the place.
Remind yourself how disturbing it is to you when your mother calls herself stupid, in a really harsh voice, when she spills something or has some other minor accident. Remind yourself this when you aren’t paying attention and the egg you were about to make falls to the floor and (obviously) breaks. Your daughter is sitting right there, watching you manage yourself and that she will internalize whatever you do. In 20 years she may be writing something on an as-of-yet non-existent social media platform (or maybe even paper, imagine!) in which she mentions the way her mother used to curse at herself and how disturbing she found it.
Take a shower. It is always clarifying.
Prepare yourself for an uncomfortable conversation you need to have with your brother. Truth be told, it’s uncomfortable for you. He seems unbothered.
At noon, a siren goes off. Out here, the fire department uses WW2 air-raid style sirens to signal emergencies. The world is an emergency. We need sirens everywhere.
Slowly realize that much of the day has already passed that you signed up for a free webinar on giving keynote talks. It came across your IG feed this morning. You thought why not? Why not is because you may not make it to the grocery store before it closes.
Choose to give yourself grace.
While you’re carrying your sleeping daughter and her backpack from the car to the front door, feel spring in the air. It’s cool. The stars are sharp. It’s hopeful.
Breathe.
Breathe.
So, speaking of readers being supportive, I’m trying out a new format for paid subscribers: a behind the scenes weekly video diary describing what influenced the writing of the poem being posted (wow that was a convoluted sentence). This is my second attempt at recording this, and while I could have kept recording and re-recording all night, I forced myself to stop, post it, and let go of the outcome (you will see how this is relevant if you watch it). I hope you enjoy!
